Lady Gaga Shows Off Her Butt In Racy Pics & Admits: 'When Not On Stage I Feel Dead!'

Lauren Alaina

Lady Gaga strips dawn to her bra and panties in ‘Rolling Stone’ — and then flaunts even more skin — all for her fans! Is she too provocative?

Lady Gaga has set a bar in the music industry for her wild outfits and crazy ‘dos — but it’s all part of her of her performance — an act that the 25-year-old artist says is her life source. “When I am not onstage I feel dead,” Gaga tells Rolling Stone. “Whether that is healthy or not to you, or healthy or not to anyone, or a doctor, is really of no concern to me. I don’t feel alive unless I’m performing, and that’s just the way I was born.”

But being Lady Gaga wasn’t easy when she first made it big in 2009. “Being myself in public was very difficult,” she admits. “I was being poked and probed and people would actually touch me and touch my clothes and be like, ‘What the f**k is that,’ just so awful. It was like I was being bullied by music lovers, because they couldn’t possibly believe that I was genuine.”

And the teasing didn’t start there, but in high school. Gaga — whose real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta — remembers “being teased for being ugly, having a big nose, being annoying.”

“’Your laugh is funny, you’re weird, why do you always sing, why are you so into theater, why do you do your make-up like that?’” are some of the questions people threw at her. “I used to be called a slut, be called this, be called that, I didn’t even want to go to school sometimes.”

Now, it’s her jaw-dropping outfits and her catchy beats that have made the world fall in love with her. “We have this umbilical cord that I don’t want to cut, ever,” Gaga says of her fans. “I don’t feel that they suck me dry. It would be so mean, wouldn’t it, to say, ‘For the next month, I’m going to cut myself off from my fans so I can be a person.’ What does that mean? They are part of my person, they are so much of my person. They’re at least 50 percent, if not more.”

And for the haters, Gaga has a message. “I have attention,” she says. “Is it that you believe that I am attention-seeking or shock for shock’s sake, or is it just that it’s been a long time since someone has embraced the art form the way that I have?”

“Perhaps it’s been a couple of decades since there’s been an artist that’s been as vocal about culture, religion, human rights, politics,” Gaga adds. “I’m so passionate about what I do, every bass line, every EQ. Why is it that you don’t want more from the artist, why is it that you expect so little, so when I give and give, you assume it’s narcissistic?”

BFFs — what do you you think of Lady Gaga’s risque photos? Rolling Stone hits news stands on May 27!